Improved machine for detaching the short fibers from cotton-seed



. 2 Sheets-Sht.

JENKS.

Cotton Seed Huller.

Patented June' 25.1861.

2 Sheeis L. P. JENKS.

Cotton Seed Huller.-

Patented )une 25; 186i.-

, are similarly marked.

"Unirse @retries Parnnr Ormea.

LEMUEL P. JENKS, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVED MACHINE FOR DETACHING THE SHORT FIBERS FROM COTTON-SEED.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 322,626, dated June 25,1361.

To atl whom t may concern,.-

Beit known that I, LEMUEL P. JENKS, of the city of Boston, Suffolkcounty, State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful machinefor the purpose of detaehing the short fibers from cotton-seed not nowdetached by the cotton-gin; and I do hereby declare that the followingis a full and exact descrip tion thereof, reference being had totheaccom.- panying drawings, and to the letters of reference markedthereon.

The nature of my invention I herewith eX- plain.

In the drawings annexed, Figure 1, Plate 1, represents a side view ofthe machine; Fig. 2, Plate 1, an end view; Fig. 3, Plate 2, a view fromthe top; Fig. 4, Plate 2, a horizontal section of the working part ofthe machine; and Fig. 5, Plate 2, a side or face view of a portion ofthc inner part, (being a perforated plate,).

hereinafter referred to.

In thedrawings annexed, AA, Fig. 1, Plate 1, (&c., the same lettersrepresenting the same parts in each figura) is a short cylinder with itsaxis in a horizontal position, supported by four legs or standards, B BB B, Fig. 1.

O, Fig. 1, is a band-wheel supported by the side ofthe cylinder and thebrace S, and borne uponthe shaft T, and bearing a handle, D. In Fig. 4,Plate 2, it will be seen that this shaft is fastened to a perforatedplate, Y, similar to one, X, Fig. 4, placed opposite, which plate X isrepresentcdin face by Fig. 5, Plate 2. The plate Y is caused to rotateby the niotion of the band-wheel O, to which it is at-` tached, and Isometimes make these plates with a plane surface, and sometimes onecon-` cave and the other convex; and in the drawings, Plate 2, Fig. 4,the plate X is shown to be concave as regards the chamber between theplates,into which the cotton-seed is placed, and the plate Y is convex,and the perforations do not all point the saine way; but while theabrading-perforations in each plate point inward to the chamber betweenthe plates, the alternate rows (marked Z Z Z I rand Z2 Zl Zz Z2 in Fig.5 of Plate 2) point outward from the chamber. rPhe inward perforationsare also seen in section View, Fig. 4, Plate 2, and

rPhe plate X is supported by the s'liaft G, (and sometimes additional bya brace outside of the cylinder,) and does not rotate, but is advancedto or receded the lever I, as above described.

from the plate 'P by means of the lever I. (Seen at Fig. 4, Plate 2,also at Fig. 3, Plate 2.) This lever is supported by the shaft G, andpartly'by a pivot, V, fastened to the support XV, which (W') is fastenedto the side ofthe cylinder opposite tothatwhichholdstheband-wheel.Theparts I-I H, Figs. 3 and 4, Plate 2, are disks fastened firmly to theshaft G, to facilitate the advancement or recession of X by means of thelever l, the friction upon the seeds generating a heat, which is furtherincreased by the pressure between the abrading-surfaces of a roll of thelonger of the detached fibers, (which, on account-of their length,cannot come through the perforations,) which roll is of courseconstantly increasing in size, while the space in which it is containedis as constantly diminishing during the working of the machine. It isdesirable te moderate this heat. For this purpose I usea device which isalso useful in abstraeting the detached fibers.

M and N, Figs. 1, 2, and 3, are two tubes or pipes firmly fixed into thelower part of the cylinder A, and entering to the chambers respectivelyformed by the plates X and -Y and their respective ends of the cylinder.Each of these tubes M and N; at their lower end, enter into the chamberU, Figs. 2 and 3, which chamber is fixed to the side of theblowaingcylinder J, (which, differing in nothing from ordinary fan-blasts,need not be more particularly described.) This fan-wheel is actuated bymeans of the small band-wheel l, Fig. 1,which connects byatwisted band(when in action) with the band-wheel C.

It remains now to describe the operation of the machine. rIhe upperdoor, E, of the cylinder A A being opened, the lower door, F, Fig. 1,being closed, the cotton-seed is put into during the rotation the plateX is graduallyadvanced nearer to the plate Y by means of The seeds beingrubbed or abraded between the plates, the apertures (seen in Fig. 4 insection and in Fig. 5 in face) allow the passage of the larger portionof the fibers detached, which are then sucked through the pipes llI andN by means of the fan-blast J, and discharged at L, Fig. 1,

'move Plate l. A portion of the detached ber remains with the seeds, andis afterward winnowed out. The seeds being nally cleaned, the plate Xisthen withdrawn by means ofthe lever I, the rotation of the plate Y isstopped, and the lower door, F, Fig. l, being opened, the seeds aredischarged entirely free from, any attached ber, 'and are then replacedin the cylinder by a new lot of seed.

It is obvious thatmy machine may be varied in form at the pleasure ofthe constructer by using but one abrading-surface, by combining severalsingle machines lin one, and by divers other modifications; but theessential particulars of my machine are evidently these: rst, theabrasion of the seed to detach the ber, as contradistinguished from theseizure of the ber, as practiced with all cotton-gms, or from anychemical means, or from any hulling process.

The rubbing of seeds-such as clover-seed, rice, tc-is well known andcommonly practiced; but the use of this rubbing is clearly indicated bythe fact that the parts of the seed sought to be removed are naturallyand invariably detached, requiring a crushing or destruction of thehull, and not a planing or abrading of it; and the object of the devicesfor hulling is the fracture or crushing of the outer covering or hull,which it is desired to re- The effect of these machines is, in fact, asimple breaking to fragments of a hollow vessel which contains the trueseed. The cotton-seed vessel or cotton-boll is different, however, fromthese. Its true hull, properly so called, which holds the cotton-bers asthey grow rmly attached to the separate seeds, is detached in theprocess of gathering, and my machine is not to facilitate this process.The seeds upon 'which I operate have ever been considered, so far asregards. the outer covering of their albuminous and oily portion orkernel, which covering I will for this purpose call the hull7 asentirely analogous to the appleseed or to the peach nut. In other words,it has always been thought that the horn-like or woody covering(whichever way one may choose to characterize it) which envelops thekernel .was entirely homogeneous, and that the bers not removable by thecotton-gin could be obtained only by the breaking of the hull. monlypracticed, and is now, to my knowledge, extensively in use. Thedisadvantage is that the short bers remain rmly attached, as before, tothese fragments of hull, and when the bers are used for paper the hullcontaining a deeply-colored dyeing substance, and being of no morecapacity of coherence than, say, spent tan-bark, is mixed in the paper,destroying the color and, what is more, the strength of the ber. It istherefore customary to burn the broken hull with its accompanying ber.

The short bers detachable by my machine constitute in weight abouteleven per cent. of the seed as it comes from the plantation, and thisseed, with its short bers not taken off by The breakage has beencomfunction of the hulls of seeds.

the gin, weighs about twenty-eight pounds to the bushel. Therevare aboutfour pounds of seed collected to each pound of ginned cotton. From thesedata, taking rthe annual production of cotton in the United States,.itwill be lseen that something over six hundred million pounds ofcotton-ber t for the manufacture of paper are annually wasted in theUnited States, owing to the circumstance that the hull of thecotton-seed has been supposed to be analogous to the hull of theapple-seed, and probably, also, to the imitation by experimenters andinventors of the action of the cotton-gin, which readily removes thelong ber, but cannot seize the short bers; but my microscopic andchemical examinations have discovered tome the important fact that thereis apeculiarity in the structure of the cottonseed hull which I believehas no analogue in botany. The testa or hull, instead of beinghomogeneous, is composed of ve layers, the part next to the seed being alayer of substance resembling oak-bark both in its mechanical andchemical structure, and four layers ybeyond this, the rst three of acorneous or horny appearance under the microscope,

making in section three bands of light brown, yellowish, and dark brown,and, fth, a darkbrown layer thinner than either of the others, but rml yattached to and forming a part of them, of a substance resemblingoakbark, and which, for want of any appropriate botanical name, may withpropriety be called the supertesta. In this layer the cotton-bers arerooted. This layer is no wise analogous to the hull of wheat, rice, orclover.

To find with cotton-seed an analogue to the hull of wheat, rice, orclover, we must include the whole ve layers, they constituting the hull,the removal of which can readily be effected by hulling-machines, whichmachines are constructed and operated for an entirely different purpose.They will free the only kernel, and so far be valuable, but will wasteand render useless the hundreds of millions of pounds of ber whichmightbe annually utilized by my machine. This layer or supertestaappears to contain neither silex nor cellulose. It does not protect toany useful extent the albuminous portion from atmospheric influences orinsect attacks, as is the recognized It is a thing sui, generis. toattach the bers to the testa or hull, and its removal is no wiseanalogous to the process calledhulling The removal of this supertesta isin effect not the breaking of the hull, as with hulling machinery, butthe planing off of the outer surface of the hull-a process which hasnever before ,been practiced with any seed, because, so far as myinvestigations have gone, this supertesta does not exist with any otherseed; next, the perforation of the rough abrading-surface to allow ofthe automatic removal of the detached ber in part; next, .the assistanceto the removal of the same without the necessity of stopping Its solefunction appears to be l the action of the machine; and, next, themodifvfying the Working of the machine, so that' its" y actionkwhich, ifcommenced with the mass of seed and attached ber occupying the samespace as is required by the seed near the end of the operation, with buta small quantity of lthe fiber Whichv was originally attached wouldcause a strain upon the machine', a heating of the same, a breaking ofthehun, &e.-,is graduated according to the work it has at the'instant toperform. These are the essential features ofv my machine. and I thusexpress-my', claims.

l. Det-aching the short fibers not now reof perforations pointing inwardand outward', f

thus not only effecting the abrasion with the -nward-pointingperforations, but by means of the outwardpointing perforations assistingthe cooling of the machine and abstraction of vthe ber by means of afanfblast.

LEML. P. JENKS.

Attest:

JOHN S. HOLLINGSHEAD, PAUL STEVENS.

